


all that never was

by allthelight



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon - Book & TV Combination, Emotions, Family, Gen, Lyra Knows Asriel Is Her Father, Mild Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22032178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/allthelight
Summary: “Why did you do it?” She bursts out, seeming no longer angry but instead just desperate. “Why did you lie? You could have said nothing. You could have just left me here and said nothing and when you visited I never would have known. You didn’t have to be my uncle, not if you couldn’t be bothered. You could have been nobody and you would never have had to see me.”Lyra has some questions for her father. AU in which Lyra finds out early.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua
Comments: 8
Kudos: 96





	all that never was

**Author's Note:**

> \- This was meant to be small and then it became this. I have a lot of feelings about Lyra and her father and this was me trying to make sense of them. 
> 
> \- Asriel’s more like TV Asriel than Book Asriel in this probably. Still has no idea how to handle his daughter but not as coarse. What can I say? Seeing James McAvoy holding a baby in that first scene really did things to me. 
> 
> \- Hopefully I got this alright and hopefully you enjoy it!

He almost doesn’t want to see her.

It’s only been eight months since he was here last, hardly a record. The gothic buildings of Jordan College rise up around him and he feels a sense of peace, a calmness that he only feels when he walks on Jordan land. He doesn’t trust anyone, Lord Asriel cannot afford to trust anyone, and wherever he goes he’s constantly looking over one shoulder, watching and waiting for someone to betray him the way they did all those years ago.

All the same, on Jordan land, his breathing is easier, the glances over his shoulder less frequent, and the weight he carries on his back isn’t quite so heavy.

People fear him, and when he strides from one building to another he is usually alone, Stelmaria in quick step beside him. Except he’s not alone, not entirely, for there’s a constant presence behind him, following like a shadow. A silent shadow that glides over rooftops, seemingly unafraid of the drop below. She doesn’t call out to him, and if she did there would be consequences, but he always knows she’s there.

Lyra, for all her wildness, is a predictable child. Today as he strides along, faster than usual he must admit, he feels that presence behind him again. He doesn’t look up to her, he never does, but at the farthest corner of his eye he can see her slinking along the rooftops. Slinking, not running. Something different. His face, already sour, crumples further. This type of change shouldn’t be worrying, yet he fears it is symptomatic of something else, a greater change that took place during his last visit and that he fears the effects of which are still being felt.

Asriel would have been quite content to keep the lie up, and had the Master and his careless tongue not gotten the better of him then he probably would have continued to do so for the rest of his life. Lyra knowing of her true parentage didn’t benefit either of them, and invited sentimental conversations that Asriel wasn’t known for having. He’d gone to see the Master, of course, to berate the stupid man; he should have known better than to be spilling family secrets when Lyra was about.

As Stelmaria has reminded him often, he didn’t handle the incident well. Lyra had, of course, all of the wild rage of her mother, shrunken down to fit into a ten-year old. She had been angry, livid, and had burst into his room, unannounced to tell him exactly what she thought of it all, which amounted into _I hate you_ and _Why didn’t you tell me?_ And _so who is my real mother then?_

And Asriel, completely unprepared and unwilling to try, had shouted back and then Lyra had stomped her foot, eyes wild, and her and Pantalaimon had shot off to bed before he could berate her for it. He had crept away at Dawn, only the servants were awake, and had went North at once.

He tried to write a postcard once. The Master had told him she was fidgety, full of incessant questions that the Master wanted permission to answer. Asriel’s pen had hovered over the card, but no words came, and instead he wrote back to the Master and said yes.

That was months ago, and in all honesty he wanted to make it months more. Finding himself here today was not part of the plan, but he needs access to notes he has squirrelled away here, and more funds wouldn’t hurt. It’s been years, but the memory of what he used to have and how much easier it would have been still frustrates him to this day.

Lyra’s shadow haunts him in more ways than one.

His rooms have been cleaned and he throws his rucksack down on the bed with more force than necessary. Stelmaria makes a low noise in the back of her throat, and doesn’t settle the way she usually does.

“What?” He snaps at her.

She blinks lazily. “You’ll have to speak to her at some point.”

“I shan’t be staying for long. One night at the most.”

“She’ll have questions.”

He laughs. “When does Lyra not have questions?”

“You know what I mean.”

Indeed he does. She has so many questions, an endless thirst for knowledge. That, he supposes, is something that can’t just be blamed on Marisa.

He’s just settled into a chair, thoughts drifting back North, when there’s a knock at the door. Stelmaria stands but doesn’t bother much more than that. He frowns and calls, “Enter.”

Lyra comes in, wringing her hands, Pantalaimon as a mouse on her shoulder. Lyra never knocks. She bursts in through windows or is dragged to his door by the Master or the Housekeeper at inconvenient times, when both Asriel and her would rather be somewhere else. Knocking is new. Another difference, yet again.

He sighs, not seeing an easy time ahead of him. Lyra stands there, eyes wide, and at once he’s out of patience.

“Yes? Is there a reason you’re here?”

His voice does something to Lyra, and at once she changes from someone timid to a wild thing. He feels relief for an unknown reason.

“I have things I want to say,” she says, fists tightly clenched. ‘And I want to say them without getting interrupted. You left last time, before I could say any of it and that’s not fair and so I want to say it now.”

Such childish nonsense Asriel has no inclination for, and being told off by a ten year-old is hardly the reason he is here. However, there’s nowhere else to be tonight, and this might vaguely amuse him more than the dreary conversation of scholars who have nothing interesting to contribute to a conversation.

‘Alright then.” He leans back in his chair. “Go on.”

Lyra seems taken aback by this, as if she expected more resistance, but she falters only a moment. “Alright then. I don’t think it’s right that you lied to me, that you been lying to me for my whole life. I would have kept a secret, you know I can, and I never would have told anybody and I think that it en’t right that you been pretending to be my uncle this entire time when you’re really my-”

Here she falters, and Asriel pretends he hasn’t noticed. ‘Is that all?”

“No.” Lyra scowls. “It’s not.”

Stelmaria lays down, stretching as she does so. Lyra’s daemon eyes her curiously.

“Well then,” Asriel says. There’s an urge to yawn and yet there’s also something in his heart. “You better get on with it then.”

“Why did you do it?” She bursts out, seeming no longer angry but instead just desperate. “Why did you _lie?_ You could have said nothing. You could have just left me here and said nothing and when you visited I never would have _known._ You didn’t have to be my uncle, not if you couldn’t be bothered. You could have been nobody and you would never have had to see me.”

There’s a pang of… _something_ deep down. It’s uncomfortable and tight and he doesn’t like it. He feels warmth on his leg and finds that Stelmaria, though still lying down, has moved to right by his side

“I see…” he draws out, for once an answer not quick to mind. “And say you had found out the way you did regardless, hm? We would still be here at this moment, having this conversation and neither of our problems would be solved.”

“You could have frightened them,” Lyra says stubbornly. “You’re Lord Asriel. Everyone’s frightened of you.”

‘Is that so?” He asks, though he knows it’s a redundant question.

“Yes. You didn’t have to be my uncle, see? You could have been nobody.”

It’s surprising how little has has thought of that over the years. The option of being nobody to Lyra has rarely occurred him. She’s right – he could have handed her to the Master during the Great Flood ten years ago and relinquished his duty as he did so. The next time he visited he didn’t have to tell her that he was her uncle, he didn’t have to invent a story about fictional parents. He could have let the Master sell whatever story he liked to her, and let her by raised as simply Lyra, while he remained an anonymous name and face. It could be argued that it would have been safer.

Except he didn’t. He left her with his name and his features and though he’s rarely here, though there’s a Greater Good to attend to, she’s never completely forgotten. As much as she’s proof of a time when he let emotions overcome reason, when he lost control of himself, it’s so very hard not to care.

“Lyra...” he warns. This conversation was never going to be easy, and that’s precisely why he doesn’t want to have it. She’s a child, he must reason with himself. A child who hasn’t seen the things he has, doesn’t know what he knows. It’s better that she doesn’t, of course, not yet, but it’s for this reason that she doesn’t understand. There are bigger things than themselves out there.

“You could have taken me with you,” she continues, eyeing him fiercely. “We could have went North-”

“The North is no place for a child,” he says immediately.

“But I en’t just just anyone’s child,” she protests, and there are tears clinging to her lashes now and he can see how very desperately she’d like to stamp her foot. “I’m _your_ child.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. Lyra, eyes wild, fists clenched, stands before him and dares him to say _something._

“Yes,” he says, meaning to sound measured but it just comes out strained. “I suppose you are.”

He’s not entirely sure what he thinks of her when he does: niece or daughter? Neither. She’s always just _Lyra._

“Do you…” She swallows, stepping forward. Pantalaimon is a mouse once again. “Do you even love me?”

Immediately he wants to leave. His chest is tight, uncomfortably so, and his heart is hammering in a way that even the toughest excursion cannot bring about. He feels himself start to move. Stelmaria lets out a soft warning growl though it’s not for Lyra, it’s for him.

Lyra keeps the postcards he sends her, every single one. He’s seen them on her bedroom wall, all stuck there next to her crude drawings of what she imagines the North must be like. Every small trinket, every feather and stone and tusk that he has brought her back she treasures as though they are priceless. It comes to his head now. Lyra loves him and he doesn’t know why. He has never done anything to merit it.

He knows how he feels about Lyra, how he just wants her safe and that he would tear the world apart if she was harmed. It’s similar to how he once upon a time felt about her mother. He just can’t say it. Nobody has ever taught him how.

He keeps his voice measured. “Do you think I love you?”

She seems disappointed and so he doesn’t feel it, he reminds himself that these things don’t matter in the long run. Feelings and emotions are pointless in pursuit of the larger goal. All the same, he can’t bear the tremble of her bottom lip.

“I dunno,” she says at last, looking at the floor. “I dunno if you love anyone.”

 _Nobody else. Only you,_ he thinks but does not say.

“I can’t be your father,” he says at last, feeling so tired.

‘No change then,” Lyra mumbles. He should tell her off for her attitude but he doesn’t. She looks up at him. “Who’s my mother?”

He raises his eyebrow. “The Master didn’t tell you?”

“No,” Lyra says sulkily. “He said you wouldn’t like it.”

The Master, for once it seems, has managed to hold his tongue. Asriel wouldn’t like it at all. There’s a reason he doesn’t want Marisa here, doesn’t want Lyra to know about her. He may not be a father, and as such he’s never called himself so, but Marisa is even less of a mother. He remembers the last time he saw her, her cold eyes and colder heart. The years have made her bitter and he won’t allow her to drip feed that bitterness to Lyra. He won’t allow her to be a pawn in her mother’s game.

“He’s right. I don’t. I shan’t tell you who your mother is and so you needn’t ask about her anymore.”

“That’s not _fair-“_

“Life rarely is. You’ll get used to it, I’m sure.”

“Why are you like this?” Lyra growls, almost animal in nature. Stelmaria’s ears prick up. If Asriel didn’t know any better he would say she was proud. “You don’t have to be. When you was my uncle it was fine but it’s different now and you’re not even _trying.”_ Her face is small, pinched. For ten years old she has such a ferocity. She would never have dared to be like this before but the moral high ground has made her quite fearless. “Why did you even bother?”

If Asriel were the sort of man, he would explain to Lyra how it felt in those moments after she was born. Her mother had turned her back on her, hadn’t even given her a name. It was just her and Pantalaimon, alone in the world. It had been sad, a hopeless kind of sad and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to let her go completely. He was all she had and, unlike Marisa, he couldn’t forget that.

If he were the sort of man he would explain that he never thought of having children, but if he had then he would have been able to _give._ Lands, money, a title, all of it would have gone to her. How to explain the failure he feels, when he walks through the door and has to charm his way to get what he used to have so freely. He has nothing to give as a father. There’s nothing left at all.

If he were the sort of man he would tell her that he does care for her, does love her even, but it can’t be the way a father loves because he isn’t a father. He has nothing for her. As an uncle, yes, he could try and he could prevent her from the disappointment she would feel. Lyra would expect nothing from him.

Except he isn’t that sort of man, and he could lament about it but he isn’t that sort of man either.

Perhaps he should have been cruel and told her the truth from the start and not cared what she thought of it. One look at her fierce face and he knows he couldn’t have done that, not even if he wanted to. Lyra, for better or worse, has that ability to worm her way into people’s hearts and take root there. He may distance himself from his feelings all he wants, but he can never sever the connection completely.

People have waged wars for love. Until he met Marisa he never understood how.

Lyra throws herself down in the chair opposite, Pantalaimon, now as an ermine, lays on the floor in front of her, looking at Stelmaria who looks back. They regard each other warily, Stelmaria not as self assured as she usually is. A balance has been disrupted and everyone in the room can feel it.

Lyra’s chin touches her chest as she slouches in the chair, feet swinging back and forward. She’s so small, so short. Only a child of Marisa Coulter and Asriel Belacqua could have such a fierce spirit in such a small body. Asriel inwardly smiles. Lyra will save the world one day, he’s sure of it.

“This is too confusing,” she says, sounding old. “I liked it better when you was my uncle.”

They have no idea where they stand now. A sinking ship, it seems. Nothing, and everything, has changed. His feelings, however, remain the same.

_Only you._

“Yes,” says Asriel, passing a hand over his head. “So did I.”


End file.
